Our Trip to St. Louis

We took off Friday to drive up to St. Louis to see Kelley's Aunt Judy get married on Saturday.  We saw beautiful fall colors throughout our drive!

We waved to the 'Bat Building" as we drove through downtown Nashville.  That's the other name for the old BellSouth (now AT&T) building.

Chloe actually passed out and took a nap in the afternoon while we were driving.  Naps are goooood for the girl child!

Owensk just chilled, spending much of the drive reading or watching movies.  He barely played his DS on the drive up!

I always love driving by all the big farms with tall silos and big, red barns.

Our sweet boy!  

Saturday morning, we went to the Magic House in Kirkwood so the kids.  Todd had accused me of fabricating the wedding just so we could go to the Magic House (he was missing a major tennis match that morning), but we all had sooooo much fun at this children's museum!

This was a gigantic instrument that played notes when the kids pressed the large, dark wood pedals with their hands.

There was a pulley attached to a hula hoop resting in bubble liquid.  When Owen pulled down on the rope, the hula hoop was raised and a ginormous bubble surrounded the kids.

They learned that if the rope was pulled slowly, the bubble sucked inwards and would pop on their legs.

But if the rope was pulled quickly, the bubble would grow taller than them.

Can you see the bubble popping here?

This was a piano that when played, created bubbles in the water tubes above it.  Owen really liked this one and played this piano for a looooong time.

Here is the static machine that made their hair stand on end!

They each got two turns because the film/polaroids jammed in the camera after the first try.

They were not sad to try it again :)

Chloe wasn't tall enough to stand in the right spot and place her hand on the big metal ball, so Todd touched the ball and held her hand to help her hair stand out.  She thought it was pretty cool to do it with Daddy!

The kids had fun going down a three story spiral slide.  Multiple times in a row.  They weren't at all bothered by running up the two flights of stairs to go down it over and over.  And over.

This was hard work lifting Chloe because the rope went through only one pulley at the top.  But she was able to raise herself on the third one which had several pulleys at the top and made easy work of lifting oneself when pulling on the rope.  Such cool science experiments for kids to see hands-on how things work!

This is a cool shadow room that really is very dimly lit and with a green wall.  Three counts after a buzzer sounds, there is a flash and then your shadow is 'caught' on the wall and stays visible for several seconds before disappearing.

This was a psychedelic room where the wall kept changing colors and forming new outlines emanating from our reflections.  

I wasn't able to get any in-focus pics, but through the colors and lines were so cool.

Yep, that'd be my camera over my right shoulder.

Before we left, the kids had fun climbing up this four story beanstalk inside the Magic House.

Kirkwood has some of the tallest trees I've ever seen and I thought the fall leaves were so pretty.

By the end of our visit at the Magic House, Todd agreed it was a super cool place and that we definitely need to come back to St. Louis for a long weekend to go again and see other things in the city!